October 2010

I lost it to the so called 4 month sleep regression. This, of course, came in tandem with my triumphant return to the VAIN beauty world and our baby’s first cold. Seriously, the world of baby parenting decided to throw me three difficult things at once and see if we would sink or swim.

We swam. We swam our hearts out! We swam even when we felt we were sinking. We adults navigated through exhausted rows with each other, necessary naps that were foiled by the ever-present boogers, and nights peppered with our sweet baby waking every 45 minutes to nurse. We swam because we had to.

There were days when I wondered how I was even standing by the end of my shift at work. There were even days when I dove right into a glass of wine as soon as the baby went down. But one thing that came out of it was this:

The further we went down the path of no sleep, the further we went down the path of shifting the baby from one partner to another to facilitate sleep before a productive day at work… the further we moved from fighting with each other to actually working with each other.

I meditated soundly on keeping my mind quiet. Every time my exhausted brain tried to tell me some story about why things weren’t working for ME, I went for a walk, took a bath, or just left the stupid laundry and dishes to fester. In the meantime, my husband, who is really so amazing, did his absolute most to give me a break when ever I looked like I was going to break. We worked better on the mechanics of parenting together, and I would say that ultimately this month of sleep regression/boogers/work has come out making us much stronger.